Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub with Pastor Jeff Ministries. On today's program, Pastor Jeff begins his special Easter message, Unexpected & Unstoppable, and shows you how Jesus Christ destroyed death so you can escape it and why His resurrection changes everything.

We're committed to equipping you with solid biblical truth so you can live boldly for Jesus. Visit pastorjeff.com for more resources to help strengthen your walk and be sure to sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly email devotionals for encouragement sent straight to your inbox every week. Now here's Pastor Jeff with today's message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Everybody here is going to live forever somewhere. Everybody here is going to live forever somewhere. It's important that you understand what's going to take place when you die. It's one of the most significant questions that you can ask in life.

Every time you go to a funeral, you're asking yourself the question because you realize someday that's going to be you in the box or in the urn. Someday you realize that death is coming for you, and you want to know what happens when we die. It's the most natural question any human being can ask because the death rate remains one per person and nobody's ever escaped it.

If you're here today to ask that question, it's normal. Animals don't ask that question because they're not created in the image of God. They were created by God, but they weren't created in His image. You were created in His image, which is why you ask questions such as where is God, and does God exist, and what happens when we die, and how can I be sure? Those are incredible questions to ask.

I want to help answer those questions today because today we're here to take a look at the person and work of Jesus because God did something incredible and miraculous. What God did was He sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. That God became flesh and He made His dwelling among us.

What the Scriptures teach, and what we've been talking about this week in our services, is that the God-man, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came here to this world, fulfilled the law that was required, never ever sinned, and then died on the cross in your place for all your sin.

But the reason that we're still talking about that event is because there's been a lot of prophets in history who have died. There's been a lot of people who have claimed to be God who have died. But friends, I'm here to tell you there's only one, and one only, who told you He was going to die and get up, who died and is as alive today as He's ever been. His name is Jesus Christ. Amen?

So what I want to talk about is that unexpected event that took place 2,000 years ago called the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To do that this morning, we're going to be in the book of Luke, the third book in your New Testament. We're going to be in chapter 24, the first 12 verses. I'll read them. This comes after Jesus had been crucified and was buried, and here's what happened on that first Sunday morning. Hear the word of the Lord.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing.

And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again?"

And they remembered His words and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in, and he saw the linen wrappings only, and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened. Hear this miraculous, unexpected story that took place on that Sunday after Jesus Christ had been crucified is what we want to talk about today.

I want to give you four points, but before I do, I just want to set something up for you. The God that I'm telling you about has always been the God of the unexpected. He's always done things that we don't expect. And there are unexpected things that happen in our lives, and when unexpected things happen in our lives, those things change us.

For people who are trying to get pregnant who can't get pregnant, and you get pregnant and it's unexpected, you rejoice in that. When someone thinks I'll never find my spouse, and they find their spouse, they rejoice. When someone's told they'll never walk again, and they walk again, it's unexpected, and we rejoice.

And the same thing is true when things aren't going well. We didn't expect this financial crisis, and it's devastating. We didn't expect this natural disaster. I didn't expect that my child was going to get hurt. It's devastating. And God is always the God of the unexpected, but I want to tell you something else about our God. He's also unstoppable.

He's all-powerful. When God does what He does, He does things for a reason, even though on this side of heaven, sometimes we don't understand what they are. Let me just give you a few. Back in the first book of the Bible, God warned the people of the day that if they continued in their sin, He was going to destroy the world with a flood.

So He sent Noah. He called Noah to build an ark, gave Noah 120 years not only to build an ark but to preach righteousness to the people. To tell the whole world that day that God is upset with your sin. He doesn't like the way you're living. You need to repent or God's going to send a flood and everybody's going to die.

For 120 years, Noah faithfully preached. But at the end of his preaching, only he and his wife, his three sons and their three wives—those eight people—got onto the ark, boarded it, and God shut the door. Then God flooded the entire planet. There's still evidence to this day that there was a global flood.

All you have to do is look at our mountains, go down and see the Grand Canyon. How did this big crater get here? Because God flooded the world. But not only that, that was unexpected to a lot of people, but it also showed His unstoppable grace. Because God not only punished sin, He provided a way of salvation for anyone who would have wanted to enter the ark.

But there were only eight that took Him up on the offer. And His grace continues to this day. Or how about when God was going to deliver the people of Israel? For 400 years they've been crying out, "Lord save us, Lord save us." God sends Moses as a deliverer. They get ten plagues. Pharaoh finally lets them go.

They get out of the land, and then what happens? He changes his mind again, and the whole Egyptian army flees after them. Now the Egyptian army's behind them, and the Red Sea's in front of them, and they're doomed. They're doomed if they go into the water; they drown. They're doomed if they stay there; they're going to be killed.

What does God do? He does something unexpected. He peels behind them and keeps the army away while He opens the sea. All of Israel rolls through the sea. Everybody safe on the other side. Then just when they get safe on the other side, He lets the Egyptian army come through and then collapses the sea again, drowning them all.

What do we see? We see God's unexpected opening of the water, and we see His unstoppable deliverance of the people of Israel. Here now, several thousand years later, He's still doing a work in the people of Israel. Or how about that little shepherd boy named David? When there was an enemy in the land named Goliath, a Philistine who didn't belong there?

He was taunting the armies of Israel, and all of the armies of Israel were afraid to face him or do anything. Nobody was valiant enough to go out and face Goliath except for David, just a little shepherd boy who comes to King Saul and says, "I'll take him out." He goes, "I've killed the lion and the bear. What's he doing here?"

"He's a Philistine. He doesn't belong. He's taunting the armies of God." When David goes to the battle line, Goliath looks at him and says, "Who am I, a dog, that you're going to come at me with sticks?" He's like, "I'm not coming at you with sticks or javelin or spear. I come at you in the name of the Lord Almighty."

In other words, I'm coming at you for the reputation of the God that I serve, and today you're done. He picked up five smooth stones but he only needed one because when he hurled it, it drilled Goliath in the head. He fell over, David cut off his head and killed him. What do you see? You see God's unexpected warrior, and you see unstoppable victory.

Because the armies of Israel regained their courage and drove the Philistines out of the land. But it's not just Old Testament war stories. We see it in the New Testament as well, don't we? You remember when Jesus sent the disciples one night after He fed the 5,000 people to go to the other side of the lake?

He said, "I'll meet you over there," and He went up on a mountainside to pray. During the middle of the night, there was a storm that was so big the disciples were so paddling in the boat they couldn't get to the other side. So what does Jesus do? He comes off the mountainside, comes out on the water, starts walking to them on the water.

The Bible said He was about ready to pass them by. Do you know why? Because He said, "I'm going to the other side, I'll see you there." Peter sees Him go and says, "Lord, if it's You, tell me to come to You on the water," and He says, "Come." So Peter joins Him and starts walking to Him on the water.

But then Peter realizes, "What am I doing walking on the water?" and he begins to go down. Jesus picks him up, takes him back into the boat, and everything is completely still. Everything is completely calm. What you see is God's unexpected presence and you see His unstoppable peace.

He was demonstrating that when I'm in your midst, you can have peace in a way you've never understood it. Or how about further on when Peter gets arrested in Acts chapter 12 and he's chained between the guards and he's locked up behind the gate and he gets awoken by an angel? He said, "Get dressed, we're going for a walk."

All of a sudden, Peter's chains fall off and he gets led out of the prison. Now all of a sudden he's outside as all the gates are opening, and he realizes that was the Lord that had released him, and he's not dreaming. We see God's unexpected intervention, and we see this unstoppable freedom for those who follow Christ.

We see God do this all the time. All of these stories are powerful, and all of these stories are true. But the greatest and most unexpected and unstoppable story in all history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There's nothing like it. You didn't see it coming, even though Jesus said, "This is exactly what I'm going to do."

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries and today's special Easter message, Unexpected & Unstoppable, showing you how Jesus Christ destroyed death so you can escape it and why His resurrection changes everything. We'll return to Pastor Jeff shortly, but first, when you place your faith in Jesus, you get more than a fresh start.

You get a brand-new life. As Scripture says in Second Corinthians 5:17, you become a new creation. To help you grow deeper in that truth, Pastor Jeff's written a powerful booklet called Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission. This encouraging resource will help you understand who you are in Christ and how God calls you to live boldly for Him in a world that desperately needs the Gospel.

We'd love to send it to you as a thank you for your gift to help share God's Word through Pastor Jeff Ministries. Just visit pastorjeff.com to request your copy today. Now let's return to Pastor Jeff for the conclusion of today's teaching.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: But the greatest and most unexpected and unstoppable story in all history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There's nothing like it. You didn't see it coming, even though Jesus said, "This is exactly what I'm going to do." And not only is it the unstoppable resurrection—or the unexpected resurrection—but it's the unstoppable mission.

Because if you really believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead, it will change the trajectory of everything in your life. So today what I want to do is highlight this unexpected and unstoppable move of God through the resurrection that He wants to talk to you about. I'll make four points and as I said earlier, this fourth point is the one that you want to pay most attention to.

So let me give you four truths about this story. The first is this: Jesus Christ destroyed death so now you can escape it. Jesus Christ destroyed death so now you can escape it. Notice this. It says but on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. Why did the women bring spices?

Because they were going to embalm His body. Why? Because Jesus is dead. Everybody knew Jesus was dead. The Roman soldiers knew Jesus was dead. The Romans knew Jesus was dead. They were afraid the disciples were going to steal the body. Jesus is as dead as dead can be. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Why?

Because Jesus Christ destroyed death. Now why is this important? Why is it important that Jesus Christ destroyed death? Because you're going to die. It's a significant event in your future. The Bible says it's appointed unto man to die once and after that face judgment. When you die, you will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, whether you know it or not, to give an account for your life. Every single one of you.

And why is this so important? Because you know that you're going to meet Him someday. You know that you're going to die. The older I get and the more funerals I officiate, the more real it becomes to me that one day it won't be me officiating; one day it will be somebody officiating mine.

As I'm looking out at faces of family members and surviving spouses and moms and dads and kids and all these different people and everybody grieving, one day I'm thinking, "One day that could be my wife. That could be my kids. That could be my friends." Because it's going to be me because it's inevitable. I don't know when; I just know that.

We don't know when we're going to die, but we do know that we're going to die. And here's the interesting thing. If you're sitting there today saying, "Why do you keep talking about Jesus? I don't believe He really rose from the dead." Why is it that you don't believe Jesus rose from the dead, but you think that you will?

I mean, what is it that gives you the gall to believe, "Well Jesus isn't God, there's no way He rose from the dead," but guess what, when I die, I bet I go to heaven? How are you going to get there? Like, who's going to raise you? Every single person that's claimed to be God is dead.

I've been to the garden tomb in Israel; Jesus isn't there. I've been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is more likely the place He was buried; He is not there. If you go to every grave in the world, He is not there. You go to the grave of any other religious leader, go to the grave of Joseph Smith, he's there.

Go to the grave of Confucius, he's there. Go to any Hindu leader, go to the grave of Mohammed, they're all there. Because it's appointed unto man to die once and after that face judgment. But this is different. This is a different story. Jesus Christ died, but three days later, He rose from the dead.

The reason this is so important is that Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God has set eternity in your hearts. You know I'm telling you the truth. You know there's something else out there. You know that you want to know what really happens. And here's the truth. Jesus Christ didn't just survive death; He died.

But He crushed death. He overcame death, and because He overcame death, you do not have to die in your sins. And here's the interesting thing, the way that He revealed this. As the women go to the tomb, the stone has been rolled away, this huge, heavy stone. And Jesus didn't roll the stone away so He could get out.

The stone was rolled away so you could look in. That you could see for yourself, "I'm not making this a secret. I am alive." And I think sometimes when it comes to church, we put our doubts aside, like "You're in church now, don't ask questions." No, ask all your questions in the church. Ask all your questions of the Word.

God's not embarrassed by any of your questions. As a matter of fact, one of the disciples of Jesus who had spent three years with Him, after Jesus Christ died, the women go back, they tell all the guys, "Jesus is alive," and none of them believe it, as we're going to read about. Nobody believes it. Peter goes and takes a look, but none of the others believe it.

A week later, Jesus appears to all of them. He comes through the wall, which tells me He didn't need to roll the stone away. He could have come through. He opened the stone so you could look in. And He appears to all of them. There's only ten that are there. Judas Iscariot's already killed himself.

Thomas, for whatever reason—I don't know what he was doing—but he wasn't with the others. And when He appears to the other ten, the other ten go find Thomas and said, "We've seen the Lord. He is alive. The women were telling the truth. Jesus is King. He is the Messiah. He did everything."

And you know what Thomas said to all of his closest friends that he completely trusted? "Unless I can put my hand in the place where the nail marks were, unless I can touch His side where I knew that sword went into His side, I will not believe it." A week later after that, guess what happened?

Jesus stood up, came into the room, and guess what? Thomas was there this time. And what He didn't say was, "Thomas, come on, bro. Tommy, why don't you believe? I told all the others." Here's what He says. He sticks out His hand and says, "Hey Thomas, see My hands? Reach out and touch them. Hey, here's My side. Go ahead and touch it. Stop doubting and believe."

And what's Thomas say? "My Lord and my God." And He said, "Blessed are you, Thomas, because you've seen. But blessed are those who have not seen and still believe." There is so much evidence for the resurrection. One being the fact that all these scared disciples who are afraid of being put to death by the Romans are no longer afraid.

And they're talking boldly in the marketplace saying, "Do with us whatever you want, but y'all are the ones that killed the Lord, and He is both Lord and Christ, and we are not going to ever stop talking about Him. You will never shut us up because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and He is Lord and we're different because of that and that's who we are."

And it's important you ask your questions. Because too often people hear religion when they come to church. Like, "I'm done with religion. All that is is a bunch of people making me feel bad." That's not what I'm telling you about. I was recalling this week a time that I was ministering outside of Chicago, Illinois.

I was a youth pastor in a church, and some lady from our church called that worked at a junior college and said, "Hey, would you come over and just talk to some of these people about who Jesus is? There's this group, and they're like a mysticism, Eastern group or something, and they just have conversations about everything but nobody ever tells them about Jesus."

So I grabbed a friend of mine, I'm like, "Yeah, let's go." And so we went over and we just started having this conversation. And as I remember, they had this model and it had like a shepherd on one side and a sheep on the other with like all these dead sheep in the middle with things, screws in them, and blood.

They were like, "What's this?" and they were like, "Whatever it means to you, that's what it is. What does it mean to you?" I'm like, "I don't know, looks like Jesus is looking for the lost." "Oh, that's great." I'm like, "What's it mean to you? It doesn't matter what it means to me. It only matters what it means to you." I mean, it was one of those conversations.

So I just started talking to them about Jesus. And at one point when I was talking to them about Jesus, they started to back up, like get defensive, and I said this. I'm like, "Lord, what do I say, what do I say?" and I quoted a scripture and I said, "You know what? I'm proud of you guys. I think the Lord would be too because He said that you should love Him with all your heart, soul, and your mind."

"And I really appreciate the fact you guys want to use your mind." And all of a sudden, it just kind of lightened their load. They're like, "Yeah, that's why we're here. We want to know." And so we ended up having this conversation that went on for about two hours. And over time, two of the three guys peeled off but one guy continued to sit there intently and we were going back and forth and I'm like, "I know he's hearing the Lord. Lord, just save him, save him, save him."

And at the end of our conversation, I'll never forget this. He stood up on the chair that he had been sitting on. He got up and then stood up on the chair and he pointed down at us. He goes, "This is what I always thought Christianity was." Then he sat back down. He said, "But if it's what you guys are telling me about today," he goes, "I think that's what I've been looking for my entire life."

And I told him, I'm like, "No, Jesus has been looking for you your entire life." That's the gospel. Amen? And it's okay to ask your questions. Jesus came out of the tomb so that all that was there was His garment so that you could look on and believe that He's risen. That He's indeed God.

He's the only one who said He was going to die and rise who actually died and rose. He destroyed death, so guess what? Now you can escape. There's hope for you. Let me give you a second point. Jesus Christ is alive, so now you can be born again. Jesus Christ is alive, so now you can be born again.

Sometimes in church we think of Jesus as, "Okay, He's up in heaven, He's like sitting around, I don't know who He is or what He does." No, He's the God of the universe and He's as alive today as He's ever been. When Jesus Christ got up out of the grave, He was on the earth for a period of weeks, and then He ascended into heaven.

And the angels came and said, "In the same way you saw Him go, so He will come back." He's alive, He's ruling planet Earth today. But notice what it says. It says but when they entered the tomb—I'm in verse three—they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus Christ because He's not there.

While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. We find out later in this chapter, those are two angels. Now just to give you a little bit of understanding about the power of angels in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there was one angel that God dispatched that slew 185,000 Assyrians in one night.

They are powerful, powerful beings. Now there's two sitting in the tomb as the women are entering, so you can imagine what they're feeling. And it says when they were perplexed about this, behold the two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And as the women were terrified—of course they were—every time God dispatches angels and people see them, they're terrified.

And they bowed their faces to the ground. The men then said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen." It's the best epitaph to ever have been spoken. Jesus wasn't dead long enough to have an epitaph on a tombstone; the angels had to proclaim it. "He is not here, but He is risen."

He is alive. He is as alive as He's ever been. This makes all the difference in the world because Jesus Christ is the only living God. So when you pray, if you're praying to someone other than Jesus, you're praying to someone dead or someone that doesn't exist. I mean, you think about it for a second.

If you were driving down the road and you came to a T-intersection or you were going for a walk on a path and you were confused about where to go, and there were two people that you could ask questions, and one was dead and one was alive, who would you ask? I mean, the answer's pretty simple. You ask the one who's alive.

The reason I'm a Christian is because Jesus Christ is alive. And if He hadn't been raised, our faith is useless and we are still dead in our sins and we have no hope. But indeed He is alive and thank God we have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? That's who He is. That's who He is.

And so we see even when Jesus showed up at Lazarus's funeral, when he had been dead for four days, and Martha comes to Jesus, Lazarus's sister, and said, "Master, he'd still be alive if You were here." And Jesus said to her in John 11, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

What you do with that statement will determine your eternity. That's why when Jesus met Nicodemus early on in His ministry, and he was the teacher of all the religious groups, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he came to Jesus to find out what he must do. And Jesus said in John 3:3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

And Nicodemus says, "Born again? Am I supposed to enter my mother's womb a second time?" He's like, "You don't get it. Here's the problem. You're dead in your sin." And here's what the Bible says about sinners. The Bible doesn't say you're a bad person and you need to be made better. That's not sin. That's the human condition. We can all get a little better.

Here's what the Bible says about sinners. That all of us have rebelled against a holy, righteous, and good God, and because of that, we're spiritually dead. It's the way we're born.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his special Easter message, Unexpected & Unstoppable, showing you how Jesus Christ destroyed death so you can escape it and why His resurrection changes everything. We're glad you joined us for today's message. Before you head out, here's a quick reminder that when you give to help share the Gospel through Pastor Jeff Ministries, we'll send Pastor Jeff's booklet, Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission, as our thanks.

It's a powerful guide to help you understand your new identity in Christ and your calling to live boldly and advance God's kingdom. And that's the same powerful truth you can help more people discover through your support. So request your copy today at pastorjeff.com and join us next time for more bold biblical teaching from Pastor Jeff.